


Eleven

by crowskullz



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Character Death, mostly felix's perspective, not super fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-09 04:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowskullz/pseuds/crowskullz
Summary: The beast was not a beast at all. It was a sign of a Dimitri that needed help. His stomach flipped.--mostly a fic about felix's life + fraldarddyd at the end





	Eleven

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first long fic in a very long time. some of these parts took a long time for me to edit and be satisfied with, and i apologize for the very fast pacing at the end, and the seemingly abrupt ending. i really enjoyed writing felix, it was oddly therapeutic somehow. perhaps i'll revisit this fic in the future.

* * *

DECEMBER 4TH, 2022 10:31 PM

* * *

Shitty blizzard coming through later this week. Shitty cold front hovering over the area like a helicopter parent. Shitty hailstorm coming _ next _ week.

Felix groans thinking about the prospect of baseball-sized hail coming down and shattering his windshield. Again.

The blue light of his phone screen illuminates his face in the dark as he lays in bed, scrolling through news story after news story. Yeah, the news was fucking boring, but Felix has been notorious for not answering his texts in a reasonable amount of time (or at all) since high school, and he’s not about to give up on that track record of his.

Still, the notifications clog up his phone if he doesn’t at least glance at them every once in a while. He sighs as he opens up his messages.

Sylvain Gautier, 8:31 PM. Not looking.

Ingrid Galatea, one day ago. Respond later.

Dimitri.

He squints at the screen in the darkness, half thinking he didn’t read that right. 

He and Dimitri had been best friends since they were in diapers. Felix had to walk to the palace if he wanted to see Dimitri, but it wasn’t that far, considering his _ own _ family’s social status. That, or Rodrigue drove him. They did everything together; when Dimitri’s dad asked him if he wanted to do horseback riding lessons, Felix jumped on the opportunity for another thing to do with Dimitri. When Rodrigue told Lambert that Felix would be joining a fencing class, Dimitri pleaded to join. When there were partner projects at school, it was always the two of them, and groups, it was the four of them. Always. When they moved up to middle school, the first time their classes would truly be different, ten-year-old Felix cried when he found out he wouldn’t be with Dimitri the whole day. Then Glenn laughed at him and told him he was being silly, so he got over it, even though he felt oddly alone without Dimitri by his side for every single class. But he survived that year and the rest of middle school. Narrowly.

In eighth grade, near Christmas break, Glenn was murdered. Lambert was murdered. Dimitri’s stepmother was murdered. Felix would remember that day for the rest of his life.

He had been continuing about his classes as he did on any regular day, his phone on an approximate seven percent, so he conceded he wouldn’t bother checking it until he had the time to sit and scroll for those precious five minutes it would last, despite the consistent buzzing of it in his pocket.

The halls were oddly quiet for the afternoon hours in a middle school. When he passed through, glancing briefly into classrooms, the first one he looked into, he noticed the teacher didn’t seem to be teaching, and something was on the TV. The faces the students were making were.. inexplicable. He still remembers the horror, the fear, and the sorrow, even on the faces of the children. When he passes three rooms, all with much the same scene, his heart begins to race. 

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He ducks into the next room, and even though it wasn’t his class, the teacher did not spare him so much as a glance, her hand over her mouth, tears forming in her eyes with her gaze fixed on the television screen.

He looks up.

_ Royal family attacked by unknown assailants in Duscur. _

He can hardly listen. The white noise buzzes in his ears, and he stumbles, having to hold onto the nearest desk to keep him upright, his lip beginning to tremble. That static feeling creeps up his legs, rendering him immobile. But three little words make him just about stop breathing: _ no survivors found. _

The world goes black around him as the numbness of grief overtakes him.

He remembers waking up in the nurse’s office next, opening his eyes to the drab beige popcorn ceiling. Groggily looking over, he sees the nurse talking to his father in her office quietly, and though he can’t hear them, he can see them alternate in shaking their heads at something the other said. Rodrigue looked awful. He’d never seen his father’s eyes and nose stained pink with the evidence of tears before. Stupidly, he was shocked. Because he was his father, and he had always seemed so composed. Poised. Somewhere deep down, Felix still thought his father was invincible. 

He was not.

His head was spinning. He half thought that maybe he had been dreaming. He hoped so.

With some effort, he gets to his feet, and Rodrigue’s head turns when he hears the bed squeak under Felix’s weight. He gathers his things, they get in his father’s station wagon, and they drive away. Far away, past their house. Felix says nothing.

Rodrigue says nothing too, for what feels like years.

“I’m sorry, Felix,” he says, rubbing his mouth, letting his fingers linger there for a moment before he puts his other hand back on the wheel, squinting past his forming tears to keep his eyes focused on the road.

“Okay,” says Felix, keeping his eyes on the road, too, biting down on the inside of his cheek so hard he swears he can taste a hint of iron on his tongue.

Rodrigue is silent for a long time. He had turned the radio off, which Felix was half mad at him for to this day until he realized what would have been on it. The news.

“Glenn is dead,” Rodrigue says weakly, tiredly, “your brother is dead.”

He was absolutely baffled by the bluntness. No sugar-coating, no beating around the bush. Nothing.

“I know,” he says. He should be sobbing, screaming and kicking in defiance of circumstance until he exhausts himself, but he can’t. Everything is numb. He doesn’t have the energy to kick, nor to cry. It only just hit him how exhausted he was.

Silence.

“Your brother is.. was a very brave man,” Rodrigue adds, “it.. is an honorable way to go out, protecting people.” 

Suddenly, a spark of energy crashes into him like a tidal wave.

“Are you fucking serious?” He croaks, his lip quivering as he looks at his father, who can’t look back. “No one survived. He died for fucking nothing, and you know that! They all did!” His voice is terribly hoarse, but he doesn’t care. The car is still moving, but he unbuckles his belt, reaching for the door handle in the heat of his fury.

“Dimitri is alive,” his father whispers, setting his jaw. Felix whips back around, his jaw agape.

_ Dimitri is alive. _He doesn’t know what to do with this information, so he sits back down, and buckles his seatbelt again, utterly spent in the passenger seat until they finally pull into the driveway their ten-minute turned three-hour drive.

Felix later found out that Dimitri was staying with his uncle out in the middle of seemingly nowhere, being privately tutored, as if hiding him away would somehow save him. Even though Felix had no idea what state he was in, it couldn’t be good, and he knew it was a very, very bad idea for him to be isolated. Felix tries to text him a few weeks after the tragedy. Dimitri does not answer. Not at first.

Two long years pass without more than four texts from Dimitri. Their two year long, ten message conversation went like this:

F: hey dimitri, i am so fucking sorry about what happened. i don’t know what to say

F: hello??

D: Sorry for replying so belatedly. Service is bad out here. I’m sorry too.

F: how is that tutor of yours?

D: Oh, he’s really nice.

F: that’s good. how is it out there?

D: Quiet.

F: miss city life?

D: Not really.

F: are you gonna come back?

He wanted so badly to reach out to Dimitri, to comfort him and hold him close, but at the same time, he made him want to bash his head into the wall for taking so long to respond. It didn’t seem like Ingrid and Sylvain had any luck with texting him, either. In fact, he responded less to them than to Felix. One silver lining.

When Felix finally got to visit Dimitri after those two years of longing to be by him, it was a trainwreck.

Rodrigue pulled the station wagon into the tiny gravel driveway behind Dimitri’s uncle’s SUV, the mingled gravel and absurd amount of snow crunching under the tires. Even after he put it in park, Rodrigue had to double-check that it wasn’t going to roll away on them, kneeling for a quick moment by the driver’s side door, flinching as the snow touches the front of his leg. When he seems satisfied, he comes to the door of the cabin, knocking on the door as Felix peeks around him, his cheeks and nose tinged red from the cold.

Dimitri answers.

He had grown within those two years. Fifteen-year-old Dimitri was a little taller, his jaw a little sharper, his shoulders a little broader. Felix was relieved to see that his hair was also cut.

Dimitri and Rodrigue made small talk that Felix filtered out, drinking in the sight of his best friend that he had been yearning to see for two years. Now that they were together, it was almost bizarre. Something felt wrong.

Dimitri felt wrong, he realized.

His face was still soft, still kind, but his eyes were immensely dark.

Something was very, very wrong, and he could feel it. It made his skin crawl. 

The second night they stayed with Dimitri in that remote little cabin deep in the forest, he found out what it was.

It was dusk when he heard Dimitri and his father talking quietly in the kitchen.

* * *

DECEMBER 15TH, 2015 6:49 PM

* * *

Rodrigue let the coffee pot run as Dimitri stood by the counter watching the sun set behind the massive pines that surrounded them. “Are you handling things well?”

Dimitri already knew what was being implied. “I.. no,” he confesses, biting the inside of his lip as a course of habit, staring hard at the barely visible halo of the sun, “I don’t know how to control it.. I keep..” He can’t say it, not at first. Taking a deep breath as he closes his eyes, he wipes a hand down his face. He trusted Rodrigue, and after all, all he wanted to do was help. “Sometimes, I see blood in the snow,” he says quietly. Tentatively.

Rodrigue wasn’t sure what to say about that, and Dimitri could tell. “I will do my best to help you, Dimitri, but.. your father never said much about this.. is there anything I can do before it happens?”

Dimitri is silent for a while before he responds. “I would be thankful if you left the keys under the mat so I can get in in the morning. Normally, I would take off by the time the stars begin to come out..” Rodrigue nods, taking a contemplative sip of his steaming hot coffee to judge whether or not it needed more cream and sugar. He decides to add another 3-second-long pour of creamer. “I will. Would you like me to follow at a distance?”

Dimitri nods as an answer, and upstairs, Felix gathers up his warmest clothes.

// DECEMBER 15TH, 2015 9:32 PM //

Dimitri is first, trudging through the wet, heavy snow with a surprising amount of speed. Rodrigue is a few yards behind, with Felix far enough behind that Dimitri’s coat is merely a blue smudge that he keeps losing sight of in the dark, even against the snow-covered pines. Luckily, his father has a flashlight with him, which helps, even if it’s dull from never having its batteries replaced. Suddenly, Rodrigue stops in his tracks, which signals to Felix that Dimitri must have too. He moves as silently as possible through the forest, finally pressing himself up against a pine tree where he would be hidden behind an abundance of thick green needles. The world is deathly quiet around him, and the sky had darkened significantly in the time they had spent walking. He can still see specks of it through the branches, and even as limited as his line of sight was, it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The stars were more brilliant than he had ever known them to be. There were countless stars in the mountain sky, scattered like paint across a canvas. Even the moon was brighter, too, he noted, beginning to see the light over the treetops.

It was a full moon that night.

A strangled cry cutting through the silence made him jump out of his skin. A shiver runs up his spine, and he suddenly deeply regrets following them. Whatever is going on, he can’t see it, but that sounded like Dimitri’s voice. He can’t help himself. What if something was after him? After his father? Without thinking about what he would do if that _ were _ the case, he blindly runs out into the clearing, yards away from the safety of the pine tree. He very nearly falls several times in the slick knee-deep snow. “Dimitri!” He calls out, and standing still, he catches a glimpse of one blue eye, wide in mingled horror, agony, and shock, before he hears a sickeningly loud series of pops and cracks. All he can see is a dark blob against the snow, at first. Then he sees two bright blue eyes open, and the glitter of something under the moonlight, which, squinting, he registers as teeth--

He startles when he’s suddenly grabbed, and he’s never, ever seen his father run so fast in his life. “What the-- what the fuck is happening?!” Felix shrieks into the trees, writhing in his father’s arms purely because it wasn’t registering that he had to get _ away _ from the clearing yet, with everything happening so fast. Rodrigue doesn’t have time nor the air in his lungs to respond. There was no flashlight anymore, only the limited light from the moon. “Where’s--”

In the dark, of _ course _his father trips. He falls flat into the snow, and Felix goes flying, missing landing headfirst into the ground by the skin of his teeth. He didn’t have the time to feel lucky to go concussion-free. He could see in the dim light of the next clearing he had found himself in. A wolf, but large and broad; larger than any animal he’d ever seen. He was almost certain that if one of those massive paws caught him, it would be game over. Something in him instinctively knew that it would be a worse idea to run than to freeze, and Rodrigue watches in terror as the hulking creature stalks toward his only son, sitting wide-eyed and vulnerable in the snow.

“Dimitri!” Rodrigue cries out frantically.

_ Dimitri. _

_ This _ had to be a dream. His body goes cold, colder than the snow could ever make him. His head down in the snow, he could see the glitter of bared teeth. His head was spinning, and he was barely able to hold onto his consciousness. This was a dream. It had to be. He felt himself slipping away.

He could hardly hear it over the ringing in his ears, but he could vaguely make out the sound of Rodrigue screaming for Dimitri through the haze.

“Mitya?” Felix whispers into the night, pathetic and tired, his eyes squinting up into the dark, even the single name half-slurred. He can’t care.

Something inside the beast— no, Dimitri— snaps. It— he— opens its mouth, as if to bite, then reels back, snapping its jaws shut, shaking out its whole body as it turns away from Felix. The last thing he can make out is a disgusting sob.

* * *

DECEMBER 16TH, 2015 7:12 AM

* * *

Felix wakes up in his room in the cabin the next morning, bundled up in an excessive amount of blankets. He groans, propping himself up on his elbow as he rubs his aching head, then wipes it back off on the blankets. He was drenched in sweat from the absurd number of blankets, no doubt. He pushes himself out of them, or rather — wrestles with them for several minutes before he manages to shove them off, throwing them into the corner out of spite.

He can hear Rodrigue and Dimitri talking downstairs again. Dimitri sounds devastated, and his father is so quiet he can hardly hear. He can only assume he's attempting to comfort him.

When he comes downstairs, both of them hush, Dimitri's shoulders instantly tensing. They change the conversation to some brand of unimportant small talk that Felix doesn’t bother to listen to. Breakfast is already set on the table, apparently completely untouched even though three plates were set out. He looks up, trying to make eye contact as if it would help him discern what exactly was going on, but neither of them look back at him. He gives up and serves himself, spreading a thick layer of apricot jam on a fresh roll from the basket, still glancing up every once in awhile at either one of them as he ate, trying to see if he could catch them watching him. Finally, he saw Dimitri eyeing him with a horrible pain in his eyes, but he breaks the contact as soon as Felix catches it.

He then realizes that Dimitri’s arm was bandaged, white gauze wrapped up the length of his forearm, and when he looks back up to his face, Dimitri is watching him again.

He remembers last night; the beast’s teeth shining under the moonlight, those icy blue eyes. The paws that could shatter his entire body within seconds.

“You’re a beast,” Felix says at last, slamming his fists into the table as he stands, the glasses on the table clattering. Dimitri startles, very nearly dropping his teacup, “you’re a—you’re — you’re a _ monster! _” He sputters, like he has to say it more than once to will himself to believe it, “Why did you never tell me?! What the hell is this, Dimitri?! What’s wrong with you?!”

Not long after, the prince’s uncle Rufus came back, and Rodrigue and Felix had another silent trip home.

* * *

AUGUST 25TH, 2017 11:13 AM

* * *

Felix did not try to text Dimitri after that day, still struggling to understand exactly what had happened. Rodrigue seemed as if he wasn't able to explain, and Felix added that to the vast number of reasons his father pissed him off. He stopped trying after a while.

He was seventeen when he went to Garreg Mach for his senior year of high school. There was, in his opinion, no reason for him to transfer out of his normal school, but his father rarely ended in any productive conversation when it was things he didn't want to explain. 

It was far, far away from home, so Felix didn’t mind all that much. But he was incredulous when he found out Dimitri was there, too. Of all people, it had to be him. The beast who had the gall to pretend to be human to all of their classmates, who were charmed by the image of a kind and gentle prince, with soft blue eyes and a smile so sincere it was hard to hate. Felix decided he would try his hand at it.

He was an expert in Dimitri-avoiding, even with their rooms right next to each other. His schedule was carefully articulated around Dimitri’s. He knew what time it would be when they ran the risk of running into each other, and he adjusted the time he showed up to before or after Dimitri would be there. Dimitri was always on time.

As it turns out, Ingrid and Sylvain were there too. Sylvain was roomed right next to him, and Ingrid was only just down the hall. Sylvain was as annoying as ever, and Ingrid still acted like she was his mother. About a week in, there was a knock at his door as he was sitting in bed, scrolling through the news feed with his head in his hand, hair up in a messy-looking bun that he hadn’t bothered to fix since the end of his daily workout. He lets out an annoyed groan in response, flopping down on his bed, phone still in his hand.

Sylvain comes in anyway, closing the door anyway. Stupid no locks on the door. At least Dimitri had the sense not to bother him. Sylvain, on the other hand, wasn’t the best at figuring out that Felix wanted to be left alone. 

Scratch that. He knew, he just didn’t care. 

From Sylvain’s point of view, though, he cared more about Felix’s wellbeing than about whether or not Felix actually wanted to be bothered. 

“Get out.” Felix’s gut reaction is to chuck one of his pillows at Sylvain, who grunts faintly as it nails him in the chest.

“C’mon, Felix! It’s your last year! You gotta at least _ try _ to enjoy it.” He sits down on the side of Felix’s bed, and Felix looks up, making eye contact with Sylvain as he puts his foot on Sylvain’s shoulder as if he were going to kick him away, but he leaves it there as he continues scrolling. “No. It’s my last year, so I have to _ survive _ it. That’s _ all _ I have to do, Sylvain.” He lets his head be half absorbed by the excessively soft pillow as he moves up so he can lie down. 

“Maybe, but it wouldn’t kill you to have a little fun.” He playfully pats Felix’s leg, and Felix kicks him lightly in retaliation, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t have time for the ‘you’re no fun’ lecture, Sylvain, so cut it.” 

He laughs. Hardly. Sylvain must really be concerned for Felix.

“..Look, I know it’s a can of worms you don’t really wanna open--“

“No,” Felix interrupts him, propping himself up with his elbow, “you’re right. I don’t want to talk about him.”

“And that’s fine, but also, you used to be best friends. You can’t ignore him forever! What _ happened _, Felix?” He looks genuinely worried, and Felix can’t stand it. Stupid Sylvain and his stupid big brown puppy eyes.

He presses his foot into Sylvain’s side. “Nothing.”

“Not true. I’m not _ that _ dumb, Felix.”

“It _ is _ true, Sylvain. What do you know about my personal relationships?”

“I know that you wouldn’t just abandon one of your best friends. That’s what I know.”

Felix sighs, flopping back down onto the all-too-soft bed. There’s silence for almost a minute, which is a record for Sylvain.

“Felix--“

“I can’t tell you, alright? I can’t.” He hisses, shoving his foot into Sylvain’s side. “So drop it. I’m not going to say anything about it, not to you, or to anyone. I’m sure you’ll find out eventually, when that fool loses control someday.”

Sylvain had stayed for a while longer, respecting Felix’s decision to not talk about it, changing the topic to inconsequential things such as their classes and the new friends he had already made. 

So he was protecting Dimitri. That was how it registered with Sylvain.

_ “You mustn’t say anything, Felix,” Rodrigue said that night when they got home, his normally well-polished appearance half-falling apart as he makes a fresh pot of coffee, doing his typical stressed-out gesture with his hands were flat on the counter, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “you can’t.” _

_ “Can’t tell anyone our prince is a monster?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, mimicking the stressed-out gesture, picked up from his father at a young age. His head is swirling. He had hoped to reconnect with his best friend from childhood, but Dimitri felt lost, thousands of miles away. He wasn't even human anymore. He finally asks the question he was most terrified of the answer to. “Has he always been..” _

_ “I don’t know, but I do know that he has been since Duscur,” Rodrigue answers finally, hesitantly, as if trying to gauge Felix's reaction, “but he never.. I don’t fully understand it myself.. but I do understand that I must protect him.” _

* * *

DECEMBER 4TH, 2022 10:49 PM

* * *

He blinks, rubbing his eyes. 10:49. He had fallen into his own thoughts again. 

He decides on a whim to check Sylvain's texts.

S: Felix

S: I know you’re still mad at him

S: But something is wrong with Dimitri

S: Really wrong

S: For real, man.

F: not new

He responds, but his stomach flips. Unsurprisingly, Sylvain answers right away.

S: Well

S: You know that whole Edelgard thing?

Of course he did. At the end of highschool, at his prestigious school full of nobility and royals, the princess—now emperor—declared war against the church, and the church fell quickly to Adrestian occupation. The Kingdom, or so called Dukedom, fell with it. Dimitri's uncle Rufus was murdered, and Dimitri had been locked up for it by a woman named Cornelia that had apparently worked in the palace when Dimitri was a child.

_ Perhaps she knew his secret. _

F: who doesn’t

S: Fair

S: Apparently our old teacher somehow found him

S: Can’t explain much

S: You have to help

S: We’re all going to the monastery 

S: Just come

S: For me and Ingrid

Sylvain wouldn't reach out about Dimitri unless it was truly important, would he? He hated how obligated he felt to help. He wished Sylvain were beside him so he could knee him.

F: fine. but you owe me

He rises out of bed, going to his dresser to gather up bundles of clean (and warm) travel clothes to take with him for the travel to Garreg Mach, and hopefully last him for the time he was going to have to reside there. He checks his phone one last time.

S: I'll buy you a drink

F: deal

* * *

DECEMBER 6TH, 2022 7:48 AM

* * *

Garreg Mach was in a state of disarray. It had become quite the disaster since he had last seen it, partially collapsed in a number of places. The villages around it were in ruins as well, destroyed by Imperial troops. 

He never thought he would find himself in the midst of a war.

Even going up the steps, there are splatters of blood dotted on the filthy concrete that send a shiver up his spine. 

Faint early morning sunlight filters in through the windows of the entrance hall, and though the outside was a wreck, the inside of the monastery looked much the same as it had before, albeit coated in a fine layer of dust. He saw no one.

It was an eerie place to be alone. A medieval-style church, half devastated, coated in cobwebs and dust.

He makes his way through the grounds to the cathedral, which seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage. Figures.

He pauses when he catches a glimpse of a figure at the far end of the cathedral, and he quickly recognizes the unkempt mop of blonde hair as Dimitri's. Even from the back, he can see the broadness of Dimitri's shoulders, the firm muscles beneath his skin. 

When he takes a couple of steps forward down the aisle between the pews, and Dimitri turns, his bangs half over his eyes. Felix squints in the half-darkness and can make out the shape of an eyepatch covering Dimitri's right eye through strands of his hair.

How odd it is, with Felix standing in a patch of sunlight, Dimitri in the dark.

The king of lions. 

He should be the king of wolves.

He parts his lips, inhaling quietly through his mouth, like an animal taking in a scent.

"Felix," his voice betrays no emotion, completely level. Acknowledgment and dismissal in one fell swoop.

"Beast," he spits venomously. He can't help himself. There was no doubt in his mind that the blood was from something Dimitri had done, even though he had never _ seen _Dimitri kill anything. But he heard what he had said to his father all those years ago. And he heard the rumors going around, of bodies found ripped to shreds, as if killed by an animal, and what the others that had been here for a while had said about him did not help, "how pathetic. You decided to give in." Even from his limited experience, he knew that Dimitri had tried very, very hard to shove down his animalistic instincts. He hid them well during his time at the monastery. "Yet you still.."

"No," he interrupts, but his words are still carefully selected as he continues, "I know I am a beast. So I act the part. I should think that would make you happy." He turns away, looking up toward the mural painted on the ceiling. 

Felix doesn't know what to say.

"You disgust me," he says finally, frustrated with Dimitri's attitude. He gave up. Why did he give up? Why did he have to let this happen to himself?

Dimitri fit in well with the ruined cathedral, once brilliant in the sunlight.

“Don’t you realize there are people here who care for you? We’re throwing ourselves into a war for you. We’re all willing to die for you. And all you want to do is go after Edelgard, alone or not, and end up killing yourself because you’re being dumb and reckless.”

Dimitri starts to speak, and Felix cuts him off.

“I thought you wanted to protect everyone. To help people. But all you’re doing is letting everyone in Faerghus die because you’re busy worrying about the wishes of the dead instead of letting the people here that so clearly care about you _ help _ you! God damn it, Dimitri!” He only grows angrier as he continues, stomping his foot like a petulant child.  
  
Dimitri pauses before he simply turns away, acting as if Felix had never said anything.

“The dead are dead. They don’t give a shit about what you do. Nothing is going to happen when you kill Edelgard except just that. She’ll be dead. That’s it. What is it going to take for you to finally let someone help you? How many people are going to have to die?”

Silence.

  
Felix takes off.

* * *

DECEMBER 27TH, 2022 11:41 PM 

* * *

Felix had been at Garreg Mach for almost a month now, and he had hardly seen Dimitri move the whole time, save for when he disappeared into the night. 

When he heard distant howling as he lay in bed, moonlight washing over his sheets, his blood ran cold.

Sometimes, Dimitri simply stood quietly in the cathedral, and sometimes, Felix could hear him speaking quietly to something that he could not see, mumbling under his breath. 

Sometimes, Felix stood beside him, as if Dimitri might dare to push him away.

He didn't.

* * *

MARCH 13TH, 2023 7:29 PM 

* * *

The wildflowers were just beginning to blossom in the fields when they laid his father to rest. 

Felix had never felt more drained in his life. Planning a funeral by himself took more effort than he had ever imagined, especially out here, so far away from Fraldarius, so far from anyone whose help he wouldn’t refuse. Maybe his father wouldn't have liked to be buried at Garreg Mach, but he didn't have the luxury of caring. _ We don't have time to go home, old man, _ he thought bitterly as he watched Sylvain and Ingrid gingerly set the casket into the space they had dug out together in the graveyard. _ This will have to satisfy you. _

It hit him harder than he wanted to admit. Those first few nights without Rodrigue were the hardest of his life, and he had to wake up in the morning and pretend he didn't care. Pretend losing his father meant nothing to him. But it did. He had never imagined that Rodrigue would die while Felix was so young, let alone die from being stabbed, die from protecting Dimitri, die in the midst of a war. 

He had never imagined that he wouldn't get to say goodbye. He didn't even get to hold Rodrigue in his arms as he took his last breath. Didn't get to scold the old man for being so _ stupid _. 

It was almost laughably unfair that his whole family was torn from him and the goddess didn’t allow him to so much as say goodbye a single time.

He stands in front of Rodrigue’s grave alone at sunset, a bouquet of asphodel in his gloved fingers, the tracks of his silent tears drying in the brisk early spring breeze.

_ “He was a very brave man,” says Rodrigue, standing at the podium at his son’s funeral, his eyes clouded with tears, stained red from his sorrows, “the finest son I could ever ask for.” _

_ At Glenn’s funeral, the casket was left shut. He was not allowed to look at him, not allowed to hold his brother’s hand one last time. _

_ He flinched at the idea of his brother’s smiling face torn to shreds by some demon of a man. Maybe it was best that he didn’t see. _

_ He sobbed for hours after the wake, kneeling in the grass, grabbing fistfuls of weeds in his small, twelve-year-old hands, pulling them from the dirt like death savagely ripped his heart from his chest. He bled out his anguish in the form of tears and white chrysanthemums. _

* * *

APRIL 4TH, 2023 2:36 PM

* * *

Dimitri’s wounds seemed to heal a little in the coming weeks. He left the cathedral, went on strolls (mostly alone, but it was progress).  
  
His father’s death is what it took. Felix was bitter and sad in those weeks.

One day, he hears a knock on his door as he sits in his room, legs crossed as he polishes his swords. Even if he didn’t use them, they should at least look nice. “Come in,” he says, turning the hilt so that he could see his reflection in the blade. 

It’s Dimitri. Felix scoffs before he can stop himself.

“Felix,” his voice is soft, his single blue eye as bright as it ever had been in five years. This felt almost like childhood Dimitri. Like his Dimitri, a few blocks away instead of hundreds of miles away, an indistinguishable blur in his memory. Seeing him like this twists a knife that Felix didn’t know was there.

“Beast,” he spits, scowling up at Dimitri from underneath his bangs, his grip subconsciously tightening around the leather hilt of the sword in his lap, “leave me alone. If I knew you would come in here looking at me with that stupid pity face of yours, I wouldn’t have let you in.”

“Please, Felix. I.. want to apologize.” His gaze wanders to the floor as he shifts his footing, “I know I apologized to everyone, about how I’ve been. But you’re the only one who knows the truth.”  
  
“Hardly.”  
  
“Then I will give it to you. All of it.” Dimitri sits down on the edge of Felix’s bed, and Felix watches him. He _ could _kick him out.

“I think you owe me the truth. Honestly, I think you owe everyone the truth, even if they haven’t seen it.”

“It is not exactly true that they haven’t seen it.” Dimitri rests his hands in his lap, looking out the window into the garden beyond the dorms, where the flowers had finally come into nearly full bloom. “I don’t know what it is, exactly. My father knew about it, but he didn’t say much. I was too young to understand. After the tragedy is the first time it truly happened.” He pauses for a moment, thoughtful as he gets back to his feet, letting the warm sunlight shine on his face as he approaches the window.

“I was consumed by my grief. By my anger. My desire to get revenge. Not long after that, I transformed for the first time. I tore my room to shreds, trying to feel better. To feel at least something.”

Felix could sympathize with that. There were times when his sadness sunk into rage, and all he wanted was to kick and scream, to throw things. To drive his fist straight through his bedroom wall.

The beast was not a beast at all. It was a sign of a Dimitri that needed help. His stomach flipped.

“I lived as a beast for a decent amount of time out of the years that I have been here. That is the extent of it. I.. am loathe to admit it, but my hands... I am bloodstained. I killed many, many guards in an attempt to make everything feel worth it. Like I am making progress. But now, I want nothing more than to cleanse myself of the blood under my nails.” 

It wasn’t the most exact explanation, but Felix would accept it. Dimitri probably didn’t understand his feelings exactly, and much less how to appropriately word them.

“Then do it. Take back Fhirdiad, and prove yourself worthy of your title.”

“I will, my friend. With all of you at my side.” Dimitri moves from the window, going back to the doorway. Felix sets the sword down, and the blonde man turns at the sound of the metal clattering on the desk.  
  
“Thank you.. for being honest with me.”

Dimitri smiles.

* * *

JULY 5TH, 2023 4:32 PM

* * *

The streets of Fhirdiad are loud with the cheering of victory.

Felix stands on the balcony, far above the people down below the palace, leaning with his arms on the railing, watching the townspeople celebrate in the square. Dimitri approaches from behind him, coming to stand next to Felix, a warm smile on his face that reached his eye.

“You did it.” He says, turning to look at the new king of Faerghus.

  
“We did it,” Dimitri corrects, letting his gaze fall to the people flooding the streets, “I could not have done this alone. Without everyone’s help, I never would have come back from the edge of the cliff I had very nearly fallen off of. That includes you.”

Somehow, Felix doubted that. 

“You’ve been my best friend since we were children, Felix. I know things have gotten between us, but.. I really want to be by your side again. You are the only one who knows me for who I am. Exactly who I am.”

  
  
Dimitri laughs. “I know you care, Felix.”

  
  
Felix rolls his eyes, but Dimitri wasn’t wrong.

“Whatever,” he says, but he had been longing for this moment.

* * *

2025

_Summer_

* * *

It seemed like since not long after the Kingdom was back under Dimitri’s control, Felix was glued to his hip all over again, which earned him some teasing from Sylvain and Ingrid, which he refuted whilst fuming. Dimitri only laughed. They had been torn apart by their differences, but they were able to rebuild their relationship in time. Not only that, but they were both able to begin to heal, letting their wounds freely air. Felix was one of Dimitri’s most trusted advisors and confidants. Slowly, they grew closer and closer again, regaining personal trust.

Felix shared more of himself with Dimitri than anyone else, and Dimitri the same. He always had.

Felix found that not only did they rebuild their relationship, but they also built an entirely new one on top of it. Things would never be exactly as they were. They would be better.

Late in the night in the heat of summer, he came to Dimitri’s room.

“Come in,” Dimitri said, yawning in the midst of the two small words. Overworking himself, again.

“Stop staying up so late doing work,” Felix says instantly, pulling on the king’s ponytail as he shuts the door behind him, “you’re going to kill yourself from the exhaustion.” Dimitri just laughs, but Felix swipes the quill from his hand, holding it behind him. 

He looks surprised for a moment, then he rises from his chair, reaching to grab it, but Felix backs up, ending up against the bedpost, with Dimitri just about cornering him. 

Their faces come within inches of each other. Felix can feel every single time his heart beats like pounding against his ribcage as Dimitri lingers there, looking at him with that single bright blue eye.

“What are you looking at?” He says stupidly, curling his lip and furrowing his brow in an attempt to look angry.

“Felix,” he murmurs, suddenly serious. Felix hated when he did that, “I..I know the timing, it’s... but I.. you understand me, Felix. No one understands me as you do. We work so perfectly together, and I’m so glad we were able to come back together.. I missed you so much. You are incredibly dear to me, and you have no idea how happy it makes me that you decided to give me another chance.. you--” Felix cuts him off with a kiss. If Felix didn’t stop him, Dimitri probably would have kept on going for hours.

As much as Felix loved his voice, he wasn’t exactly eager to hear Dimitri say sappy things for an hour and a half.

“I love you too. All of you.”

Felix was glad for this. The next time he saw flowers, he saw beautiful red roses. There was no casket, only Dimitri's smiling face dusted pink.


End file.
